Reports & Studies

This is an archival or historical document and may not reflect current policies or procedures.

Committee on Economic Security (CES)

"Social Security In America"Published by the Social Security Board -- 1937

The Social Security Act of 1935 was, arguably, the most important piece
of domestic policy legislation of the 20th century. The intellectual case
for the Social Security Act was developed by the President's Committee
on Economic Security (CES). The CES was formed in June 1934 and was given
the task of devising "recommendations concerning proposals which
in its judgment will promote greater economic security." In a message
to Congress two weeks earlier President Roosevelt spelled-out what he
expected the CES to achieve. ". . . I am looking for a sound means
which I can recommend to provide at once security against several of the
great disturbing factors in life--especially those which relate to unemployment
and old age."

The Committee's work was extraordinary in its scope and remarkable
for its brevity. In barely six months the CES designed the first comprehensive
federal social insurance program in the nation's history. Not everything
contemplated by the CES at the outset made it into their final proposal
and not everything in the CES proposal made it into the final law. But
the Report of the CES was the basic blueprint for what would come to be
the Social Security Act.

The full work of the CES was contained in 10 large volumes of reports
and studies, which were never published. In 1937, two years after passage
of the Social Security Act, the new Social Security Board published a
summary of the Committee's work. This summary was in the form of a book
entitled, "Social Security In America." This book, therefore,
represents the only published work documenting the study and analysis
that underlay the creation of the Social Security program. The book has
been out of print since 1937, and is being republished here in its entirety.

It is important to appreciate that this book is not a full record of the
CES' studies. The still unpublished 10 volumes of studies contain many
reports and some key recommendations that are absent from the 1937 book.
As the Preface to the book put it:

"The present report is a summary of some of the most important
information in the staff studies. Completely omitted from consideration
in this summary were numerous studies which concerned problems not dealt
with in the Social Security Act or which have been published privately.
In many instances the specific recommendations included in the voluminous
staff reports have been omitted, as these are now largely only of historical
interest. In this summary informational data in the staff reports have
also been greatly reduced in volume, but it is believed that the most
essential facts have been included."

Despite its shortcomings, this book is a foundational document in the
development of the Social Security Act in 1934-35. Until the unpublished
10 volulmes become available, this electronic reprint of "Social
Security in America" is the most complete documentation of the work
of the CES and is perforce the most complete explication of the case for
social insurance made by the CES.

TABLE
OF CONTENTS

Note: Page numbering and page-breaks are
maintained as in the printed version of the book, in order to facilitate
citations and cross-referencing to the printed volume.

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